And this can be accomplished only if the “others” on these historically Waspy campuses exist is such a critical mass that they feel empowered and heard in a meaningful way. My feeling (I’ve worked my entire career on college campuses) is that the current numbers of kids of color at Williams and elsewhere is pretty much at the minimum it needs to be in order for the entire community to benefit from the immeasurable good their presence adds to the educational quality everyone enjoys.

If you really mean “at a minimum,” then I have a deal for you! Let’s replace 25 (or 50!) of the white students in the bottom admission bands (say, AR 4 and below) with 25 (or 50!) Asian-American (or Asian-Asian) applicants with AR 1 that the College currently rejects. This would increase the “current numbers of kids of color at Williams” while, simultaneously, improving the academic quality of each class. Since many (most?) such white admits are athletic tips, the cost might be a few more losses in certain sports, but, even then, Williams would still have an above average athletic programs.

I am honestly curious what you think of this proposal.

The best, most aspiring, most intrinsically interesting white kids will not generally feel compelled by a campus that minimizes the kinds of values I am talking about or one that is seen to be backtracking on its commitment to diversity. Less kids of color means less high value students of every background.

Perhaps, but I doubt it. Consider Middlebury and Caltech, two very different schools, both of which place much less emphasis on African-American enrollment than Williams currently does. Middlebury is at 4% and Caltech at 2% for the class of 2020. I have never heard of a white (or Asian-American!) student reporting that such low African-American enrollment was a reason why they turned down Middlebury/Caltech. Have you? I find the whole thing absurd because the number of white/Asian students who are even aware that Williams is 8% (twice as much as Middlebury!) and Amherst is at 12% (6 times more than Caltech!) is, essentially, zero.

But, as always, contrary opinions welcome. Do you know a white/Asian-American student who turned down Middlebury or Caltech because there were too few African-Americans?

The most subtle argument involves critical mass. While I have never met a white/Asian-American student who knew/cared about differential percentage of African-American enrollment across Middlebury/Williams/Amherst, I know that many African-American students themselves care a great deal. So, perhaps if we didn’t accept 20 or so African-American students from AR 6 and below, we would not be able to enroll the AR 3 and above African-American students whom we most want. Perhaps. Informed commentary welcome!

Caltech is a special case because it’s an institute of *technology*. Midd, by contrast, is an up-and-comer that has gamed the USNWR rating system to rise in the rankings over the years. USNWR gives more points for SAT scores than for diversity, so Midd has emphasized SAT scores over diversity. Now that Midd is safely ensconced in the USNWR top ten LACs, this doesn’t mean there isn’t pressure to increase diversity there, as the springtime riots of millionaires’ children on the mean streets of inner-hamlet Middlebury reminded everybody. If you look at that CDS you posted for Midd, you will notice that the percentage of African Americans in the freshman class (4%) is higher than for the school as a whole (3%), indicating an uptrend in African American enrollment. This is something virtually every elite college besides Caltech is trying to do. Why you think Williams would possibly want to go in the opposite direction is a mystery to me.

Williams could replace a bunch of white AR2 legacies with white and Asian AR1 non-legacies; would this please you? A small number of specialized schools, like MIT (again, “technology”), have successfully dropped legacy preferences, but I believe more mainstream schools like Williams are afraid that dropping legacy preferences would kill their capital campaigns.

I think your proposal to eliminate athletic recruits and replace them with AR1’s is the only one that could work, assuming you could convince American colleges to give up their sports religion.

For me, the more interesting comment on that thread comes from someone who says they are a current student name(required). They write:

As a current student, I’m tired of the narrative that the kids who are pulled in largely through “other” factors are equally as academically qualified.

As an ex-faculty member, I have to say this student’s comments certainly reflect my own experience. Of all the “D” and “F” grades I have given to students, at a wide variety of institutions, I would say that about 80% have gone to minority students. The student also writes:

…it seems to me that the vast majority of students simply self-stratify, so that diversity based benefits are minimized.

Again, a neat, common sense observation that should wake more people up to the reality of being a contemporary college student in a wacky, out-of-touch, liberal arts college. Then, worst of all, the student mentions the social pressure which forces students to be silent and to avoid arguing with each other at all costs:

Additionally, the constant threat of being lampooned for mis-speaking makes it simply not worth it to engage on controversial issues.

This is a sad state of affairs. Ironically, liberals are destroying the very values they seek to enshrine with their hurtful, misguided policies. I’m grateful Ephblog exists so students like the one quoted above know that they are not alone and that plenty of us feel their pain.

“Why you think Williams would possibly want to go in the opposite direction is a mystery to me.”

Because we are #1 currency, and have been for the past 15 years. It is hard being #1, especially for that long. There is a new president incoming and does this person really want to have Williams slid to #2 (or #3) in the next 2-3 years during the start of their tenure? Bumping SAT 30 pts seems like a cheap way to ensure that this does not happen.

“Caltech is a special case because it’s an institute of *technology*”

Can you please be very *explicit* about the *exact* mechanism that would imply that a technology school would have less URMs then a liberal arts college at the undergraduate level. I would love to read through that (hey it’s friday — slow day at work)

I know of a number of white students who chose not to attend schools like Middlebury (although not Mid specifically) because of the perceived white/waspy-ness of the campus. And I know a number of white students who were deeply unhappy at schools like Middlebury (although, again, not Mid specifically) because of the perceived white/waspy-ness of the school in question. The admissions preferences of wealthy white folks, however, seems to me to be at most a tertiary goal of diversity policies.

Re DDF: I think these things are more complicated than you (or Muddy) are making them out to be. Non-white kids aren’t simply some swappable commodity. And getting a school to feel sufficiently “diverse” for either liberal WASPs or for kids who belong to other communities requires more than merely ensuring that the number of non-white faces in the yearbook exceed a certain minimum number.

Re anonymous @8:07am–I don’t think the post in question necessarily implies that “best” includes an association to a set of values. Rather, if we accept that white prospective students nationally lean to the left, and that white prospective students at Williams lean more heavily to the left than average–two relatively uncontroversial points, I think–then it follows that a majority of the “best, most aspiring, most intrinsically interesting white kids” will be left leaning. Unless you think that left-leaning kids are worse/less aspiring/less intrinsically interesting than average, it’s a basic numbers game.

Let us be very specific here: the current system accepts a child of African American surgeons from manhattan with 1250 SAT over a child of Chinese American laundry mat operators from Queens with 1540 SAT. The rationale is that child of black surgeons suffered more latent racism (or, to use a Supreme Court justification of affirmative action, will contribute more to college experience of white students somehow via offering unique perspective in physics class discussions; Or something).
If that does not make your blood boil, I don’t know what does.

Having worked in the Williams admissions office, I’m not actually sure that your hypothetical is accurate. The process is more holistic than you imply, although you are likely correct that there are less exaggerated circumstances similar to the one that you highlight.

That aside, though, what’s your point? Should we not use race as a signal for a set of experiences and a set of privileges because, like all signals, it can be imprecise? That seems to be your implication. The “problem” you raise is one that could be partially resolved by hiring more adcoms to evaluate potential candidates. But, even then, there are going to be limitations — Williams has a limited amount of information about its prospective students and it’s not always going to be able to discern what sort of experiences and viewpoints a “diversity” admit actually brings to the school (and there is a real cost for asking for more information: ask for too much and you’ll discourage folks from applying).

Along those lines, I also want to push back on your implication that a child of African American surgeons from Manhattan doesn’t actually bring a rich and valuable set of experiences that are materially and substantially different from her white Manhattan surgeon-kid classmates. Race is not only a signal for wealth–there are many privileges and experiences tied to presenting (or even identifying) as one race versus another entirely unrelated to the career of your parents or the location or value of your house.

Incidentally, and I know this was a throw-away point of yours (and probably an intentional straw man), the vast majority of learning that happens on a college campus like Williams does not happen in physics class discussions.

Abl,
Thank you for posting here. I really appreciate the perspective of someone who actually makes these decisions.
Can you shed some insight into how you zero in on the percentage of AA students (say 8%). Why 8%? Why not 10? Why not 4?
Also, what do you think about Caltech example specifically?

Can you tell us at what level has that decision been made? Who is the “Williams” you are referencing here? Is this decision made on the level of:
– admissions office
– deans office
-faculty vote
-president
– trustees
I sure don’t remember anyone asking alumni for input here. I am genuinely curious who is the decision maker here

To clarify, I am not currently in the admissions office, and when I was, I was not someone who actually made these decisions. My experience in the admissions office gave me a lot of insight into how this process works, but my perspective is nonetheless limited. I’m happy to weigh in with respect to my thoughts on the wisdom of racial quotas as a normative matter, but I don’t have anything descriptive to offer vis-a-vis the possible Williams’ policies to which you refer.

Regarding Caltech, it’s a different school with different educational goals and different strengths. In one big, and significant, respect, Caltech as an institution has always appeared to me to be less committed to the sort of whole-person education that Williams, I think, aspires to. In other words, Caltech, as an institution, might be willing to trade a lot of the other education that happens in a college (like much of the out-of-the-classroom stuff) for a marginal increase in its students’ physics proficiency. If you (a) don’t have a lot of students taking classes in subjects–like just about all humanities and social science subjects–where a student’s background/experiences could significantly contribute to class discussion, (b) aren’t all that institutionally committed to those classes that students do take in those areas, and (c) aren’t that committed to what happens outside of the classroom, then a lot of the school-wide advantages of diversity aren’t things you’re prioritizing. Personally, despite having a graduate degree in the “hard sciences,” I don’t think that much of this model–and I didn’t apply to Caltech. Don’t get me wrong: I think Caltech is an incredible school. But I wouldn’t recommend it over Williams for most, even hard-science-minded, students.

One mental model Of this I have is that admission office staff go to some conference every year and at that conference the school with % of AA admits <5% is named and shamed and no one wants to be that guy as that would hurt their reputation within an arrow field of admissions professionals. Another mental model is that if a school gets <5% of AA admits, other schools will vote to t down in a peer review rating thief tanking its us news ranking.

Well, that’s a pretty intriguing trade but let me suggest a modification. Trade the bottom 25 athletic tips at a 4 or higher reader rating for 25 2’s who are blisteringly smart. The 1’s in that category get admitted anyway, but most 2’s get bypassed because of tiny test score differentials. You get higher test scores averages (if you care) overall for the entering class, and some really big classroom impact.

It is just chilling to read how easily you dismiss the anger and frustration of children and parents who are the victims of your favored form of racial discrimination. As you write:

I suppose I should be more empathetic to the human wreckage of all those Deerfield Academy kids assigned to the gulags of Lewiston ME and Grinnell IA, but I’m not. They will be fine.

As one of the people you apparently have no empathy for, I should probably bring to your attention that the resentment and hatred caused by reverse discrimination doesn’t go away. Thankfully, the people you would mistreat are now fighting back and resisting the evil of affirmative action.

You remind me a lot of the leftist demagogues who did not care who they harmed under their Communist regimes.

“Reverse discrimination?” That’s a nice buzzword, but what do you actually mean by that?

As I see it, what you call “reverse discrimination” is just a school taking into account *all* of the available evidence to evaluate students. A student who takes a fancy SAT prep class and who has had a math tutor since eighth grade and who has never had to work a second job or continue to study with a clear mind after being called a “dumb n____ for the fourth time,” who is denied admission in favor of a poor black kid from Queens with marginally worse SATs/GPA, isn’t a victim–she’s someone whose numbers have been relatively inflated by her circumstances rather than her raw abilities.

Or, if you have thin skin, a nicer (and equally valid) way of putting this all is to say that she’s been given the rare gift of being supported in living up to her full potential. Why should she get the nod in admissions over a student who, through no fault of his own, hasn’t been that gift? Why is it fair for a student who achieved a 3.9 GPA with the help of a tutor and supportive family, and a 750 SAT average–again with the help of a tutor and a supportive family–to be given the last spot in a class over someone who has achieved a marginally lower GPA/SAT (say, 3.85/745 average) all by himself? Having both tutored and done test-prep professionally, I feel confident in saying that my services, at the very least, were worth a heck of a lot more than 0.05 in GPA and 5 average points on the SAT.

We can quibble on how much of a boost “privilege” can account for. That really strikes me as the only reasonably position. But at that point, we’ve essentially agreed that there is no such thing as “reverse racism”–only, potentially, some valid boosts that need to be better calibrated.